


my love is nothing but a monster

by Drake, Ghrelt



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Vampire Bites, do i ever write anything that isnt hurt/comfort at some point, vampire Joe, werewolf Nicky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/pseuds/Drake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/pseuds/Ghrelt
Summary: Yusuf does not  expect to find a new facet of his immortality, let alone at the hands of a beast.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 34
Kudos: 70





	1. First Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> i love vampire and werewolf aus but whitemanvampire and brownmanwerewolf is so tired so i said let's do something new c:

Nicolo di Genoa is the best at what he does. This is for a handful of reasons. For one, he is quite resilient to damage, even among his own kind. For another, as he gathers, he tastes quite repulsive to those he calls prey. And for a third, anyone who got near to his level of efficiency and skill tended not to last long. The prey would turn predator and deal with those too renowned in skill. 

He had avoided such a fate thus far with planning, skill. Luck. 

Such as now, when his prey turns a sword that _feels_ like silver and runs it through his ribs, before bounding backward and away, taking a light slash of his silver-coated claws as punishment. 

Nicolo snarls, barely catching himself on four feet, and the quarry disappears. 

He takes a moment to recover - must not have been silver, with how he’s already healing - and gives chase. 

—-

Yusuf Al-Kaysani discovers that he is unique at the hands of a _mongrel._ It snuck up on him - how? It stinks, it’s huge, and nowhere near silent - and he pulls his saber and runs it through but it’s persistent, blinded by fury, because it doesn’t falter or die. Did he forget his silver sword? It wasn’t very useful against humans, to be sure, but beasts? 

Nonetheless, it causes pain, and this gives him enough time to pull back, earning a swipe through his shirt with claws that _burn_ , and duck away, taking off into the night. 

The sword didn’t work, so he sheathes it, reaching for his dagger instead, as he runs. This one is definitely silver, it always is. It will work, if he doesn’t manage to lose the trail. 

He stops bleeding a few minutes into the chase, though the beast’s nose can certainly pick him out regardless. 

When he runs out of city and out of hiding places, he hears the lope of those massive paws coming close, and he whirls just in time to stab the beast in the heart as it does the same with claws poured in silver. 

He collapses under its weight, roaring in pain, and it dies on top of him, the both of them bound in pain and fury alike. 

Only, he doesn’t die. 

He wakes, a while later, in the shade of the pre-dawn light, alone. His dagger is gone and so is the beast. His shirt is rended, in tatters, and yet he runs his hand over his heart and finds it whole. 

That was silver. He knows it was. So why didn’t he die? 

He sits up with a grunt. No matter. He was out for a meal and denied that, and now he has to find someone who won’t be missed this early in the morning. 

And then find a new shirt. 

\--- 

It is only after he has fed and returned home that Yusuf considers it perhaps wise to hunt down the beast that tried to kill him. If for nothing else but the fact that it still has his dagger. 

The only issue with the idea is that it is hard to find a beast when they appear to be human. Certainly, they smelled like dogs, but then, so did all of the invaders. 

Which complicated the search quite a bit. And waiting until the next full moon, when the beast was _certain_ to be out, just gave it time to prepare, or flee. 

He could reach out to his fellows, but that would likely involve them finding out, through some way or another, that he did not die after being stabbed in the heart with silver. And once they discover that, he’s not sure what else they’ll try to discover about him. Yusuf knew better than to trust so blindly with a secret that felt so heavy. 

Perhaps he is hunting the beast because he knows he stabbed it in the chest with silver, too. And the evidence when he awoke, alone in the dust, was that the other creature hadn’t died either. 

He’s certain the beast did not _give_ this affliction - or blessing - to him, because it was most definitely trying to kill him, which means that he is unlikely to get a satisfying answer out of it, but there is no harm in trying. 

The city is large, but Yusuf and his fellow vampires have many eyes all across it, and even despite the turmoil from the invaders threatening the peace here that they so prize, it was difficult to hide from them. Their informants preferred the safety of a city under vampire control than letting it go to the dogs, so to speak. And it kept them and theirs safe from being fed upon, as well. 

The arrangement worked for them all.

So Yusuf put out quiet requests for any information on a new beast in the city, a werewolf they did not recognize.

All he had to do was sit back and wait for the creature to fall into his lap.

Which, Yusuf will later wish he had specified, he did not mean _literally_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It becomes less about killing the beast, the man, than it does about making him stop coming back to life to _steal his dagger._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all!! I got my co-writer back! Ghrelt's joined me in the monster pit and we can't wait to bring you more.
> 
> As always, comments feed us <3

One vampire down, the rest of Jerusalem to go. Nicolo had no idea how many held court here, only that the city was so tightly under their control that he’s surprised he even managed to find one alone. And kill it.

It meant that even the most impenetrable of walls had weaknesses. And where he found one vampire, he could find more. So that’s what he’ll do. 

He’s started to chart out who might be an informant for their masters, and who was likely just nosy. He’s spent more than one afternoon lurking close enough that his heightened senses could hear - but not close enough to be seen - to a shop whose keeper may have been what he was looking for. Either they had seen him and were being careful, or he’s only found dead ends so far. 

Until he wanders past a shop and almost trips into a display of rugs. The scent that drifts into his nose is a  _ familiar _ one. The vampire he killed had come here. Before his very timely demise.

He grins at the thought. Killing the undead always brings a smile to his lips. One of his few remaining joys.

Nicolo wonders how often the vampires come to check on their chattel. But this is the strongest clue he’s had to finding more, so he endeavors to sneak in and find a place to listen and meditate, for as long as he needs to. 

Nicolo is a patient man. A patient hunter.

He sneaks into the attic of the store, right above the sitting room where the owner might have refreshments with a client, and settles in to wait. 

They do not keep him waiting long.

\---

Yusuf is making his rounds, checking in on the informants that haven’t reached out in too long. The ones that think they can get out under their control by just disappearing for long enough. They tended to learn their lessons, when taught them. 

Of course, what they didn’t expect, was to see someone they were beholden to during the light of day.

A quirk of his new immortality. That he could walk among the sunlight. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but it wasn’t debilitating, either. He supposed it had something to do with the way any wound he took started to heal. 

He wonders if he’s immune to all of the ways a vampire might be killed, now. Not that he was exactly keen to test it. But the sunlight - and, evidently the silver - are two he knows of, and will make full use of. As long as he can keep the others of his kind from finding out.

So he walks in the late afternoon, before the people who have been avoiding them can leave their shops and disappear home, and stops in on them, one by one. Gathering what information they have to give, reminding them that they are always being watched. Until he reaches the rug merchant, and smells something he should  _ not _ be smelling, here. Either a beast, or an invader. 

Neither a good sign.

So he strides in, the scimitar he always has over his shoulder sheathed, in plain sight, The sheath at the small of his back, the one meant for his dagger, empty. He still wears it. A reminder of the beast he hunts, and the dagger that he  _ will _ retrieve. 

Yusuf greets the merchant with a nod, an eyebrow quirking as the man seems to blanch. Interesting. It was past sundown, he should have been expected around now. Or perhaps the man wasn’t expecting a vampire at all. Perhaps he’d turned on them. 

It would explain the stench. 

Still, the merchant greets him, invites him in like he was expecting him. Yusuf is wary, as he always is with these humans. Of course, he’s a lot more resilient now than he used to be. so perhaps he didn’t have much to worry about, after all. 

They trade stilted greetings as he’s led to the back. The smell isn’t any stronger here, and yet it feels more familiar. He wonders if it is the beast he had a run-in with before. If it had come through here. They sit down, as he’s offered coffee, and exchange thinly veiled pleasantries. 

Yusuf lets him make his report, sitting back, his dark red eyes dangerous and calm, waiting for him to slip. To inform about the beasts, or get caught in a lie. 

\---

Nicolo has almost no warning. Just a single ominous creak that’s just enough for his eyes to go wide as he considers diving out of the way and-

Instead crashes down through the ceiling with the rest of the dry-rotted boards. Right on top of the dead bastard.

That single creak is the only sound Yusuf gets in warning, and he’s about to lunge for the merchant, grab him and use him as a threat, a shield, anything he needed to deal with the danger.

Nicolo’s all arms and legs and  _ useless human _ and sprawled across the dead prick who’s  _ not dead anymore, _ scrabbling for his trophy knife with his back exposed-

One moment Yusuf is preparing to brace for a fight. The next the ceiling crashes open and a man slams down into him, on top of him. He has less than a proverbial-heartbeat to react.

And then the stench hits him.

“ _ You _ -” Yusuf snarls, his hand wrapping around the man’s throat as he flings him onto his back. He doesn’t need to see the man in beast-form to recognize him by smell.

Nicolo would snarl out the same but he can’t fucking breathe. He pulls the knife he’s held as a trophy these weeks, and returns it to its owner, jabbing through the ribs. It is silver. It should wound, even if it’s not a kill-shot. And give him a chance to claw out some advantage.

The beast pulls out  _ his dagger _ , and then suddenly it’s buried in Yusuf’s chest, and he roars in pain. The merchant scrambles back and away, and Yusuf doesn’t know where he disappears to. Escaping, perhaps. 

Nicolo doesn’t have time to shift and he just gave away his only weapon. He’s grown quite fond of that thing. Reaching for it, he yanks it out to sink a better strike. And misses, his hand slipping on stolen blood as it slides across the ribs of a dead man. Twice-dead?

Why isn’t he still dead?

They are both asking themselves the same question. Only Yusuf is not thinking it so clearly, because there is a knife currently stabbed into him, burning silver-hot and lancing through him. What he  _ does _ manage to think clearly, however, is that he’s going to kill this beast and make it  _ stick _ this time. 

“I will kill you as many times as it takes for you to stay dead,” Yusuf snarls, and it’s so much easier when he isn’t a beast, his nails digging into his throat hard. Ignoring all the blood he’s dripping onto the creature’s shirt, reaching down to pull the dagger out of himself and stab it into his chest, too. 

Nicolo gasps, staring down at that silver as he feels it burn its way into his chest. Watches the gush of blood pour out, peppered with little bubbles that rise up to the surface.

Of all the things, why is it the bubbles that bother him so. The room begins to swim as it leaks out, hot and sticky and bubbling.

The bastard’s going to get the dagger back.

That’s the last thought before everything goes black. And then cold.

Yusuf waits until the beast stops breathing. Writhing, bleeding. His own chest heaving, the fire of the wound still knitting itself closed, and he stands up off him, pulling his dagger out with a decisive twist, before stumbling away and into the darkness. 

He’ll deal with the merchant tomorrow.

\---

Nico wakes in the cold, and the dark. Face sticking to the floor from… ugh. Blood.  _ His _ blood. And that of the Dead One. Mixed together and the mere thought of that has his stomach roiling.

Why does he keep rising? What is this witchcraft? Is the creature casting some sort of spell to control him? If so, he won’t succeed. Nico is not nearly so biddable.

He glances around, and thank the God he thinks has forsaken him, he’s alone. They scared the shopkeep off. He peels himself off the blood and wonders if he’ll even be able to get through the city without being arrested. Dammit. No more skulking in buildings for a while. It’s not really his forte anyways.

Yusuf is long gone by then. 

He has his dagger back, but this isn’t the end of it. 

He will not rest until he’s killed that damn dog for good. He’d never seen such a stubborn beast. And as certain as he was that he needed to kill it, so he is certain that it will hunt him, too. 

He wonders if this beast appeared with the invaders as a test. Mocking him with all he’d failed to fight off before, with what he’d had to suffer before he was given immortality. First, of the vampiric kind. Now, this. Whatever this was.

Whatever he shared with that beast.

Damn. Damn the invader, and all who were like him. 

Yusuf has work to do.

\--

Nico manages to escape the city, though not without a not-small amount of being shouted at and running away. He is. Very bloody. It’s not a good look. Or an inconspicuous one. 

Once clear of the city he makes his way along the river until he’s finally out of sight of onlookers. Of fools who don’t know how to keep to their own business.

He’s maybe a little bitter. It’s been a long day and he  _ liked _ that knife.

He misses forests and trees and grass and  _ shade _ and he hates all the sand and dust and heat, the way it scalds his skin, day in and day out. The smell of the undead that permeates this city. 

He misses his Order. The ones he failed to protect. All slain at the hands of one of the beasts. A beast he, for some reason, survived to slay. And woke as on the next full moon.

Nico has been alone ever since.

He wades in, fully-clothed, soaking himself entirely before undressing in the water and tossing his clothes to soak by the shore, sighing as the water sluices around him and slowly strips the smell from his body.

_ His  _ smell. That acrid dead blood stench that burns his nostrils. Nico ducks under, scrubbing his skin and hair and fighting back nausea. Staying below the surface until he can’t stand it any longer, when he surges up to gasp for air. Shakes his hair out and with it, laughs at himself.

So dramatic. This is not the end of the world. His peculiar new nature appears to be holding. This. Might give him possibilities he hadn’t considered.

Think of how many of the unholy undead he can put permanent end to, when he himself cannot die.

Perhaps a gift from God? A means for him to still serve, though he is a monster now.

A chance to atone for his current state.

\---

So begins their hunt. Every other invader and beast ceases to matter. Yusuf intends to catch and kill  _ this _ one, because if this is not a challenge put forth to him by the fates or whatever god exists up there, then he does not know what is. 

Each time they meet is bloody.

Each time one, or both, of them is killed by that dagger. 

The blade changes hands more often than Yusuf would like. 

It becomes less about killing the beast, the man, than it does about making him stop coming back to life to  _ steal his dagger _ . 

No amount of creativity in method keeps the beast dead though, not even ripping his throat open with his fangs. The taste is awful, and he can’t get it out of his mouth for days, no matter how many humans he feeds on after. 

Cursed by this beast, locked in an eternal struggle, where he’s sure that even if he left Jerusalem, it would follow him. 

But he is not one to concede. He never has been, even when another vampire tore his own throat open and turned him. He is sure that is how he rose again, instead of dying like so much prey. 

And now that he was unkillable, it seemed, well. He would win, one way or another.

\--

He doesn’t use his claws much. Not anymore. They both seem to have fixated on the damn dagger. If they both rise again, how else to tell who won?

They both seem entirely unwilling to give up this… feud? Rivalry? Enmity?

Bloody, personal hatred.

Intense, visceral loathing.

Yes. That’s the one. He  _ loathes _ the vampire. 

This particular one more than any other, though he despises all the rest.

The time he got his throat bitten out was a particularly awful death. To have him so  _ close _ . To wake later with the undead stench upon him like week-old rot.

It took days for the scent to leave him.

He’s supposed to be the one tearing out throats. He doesn’t though. Vampire blood is like eating burning ash. Tastes awful and takes longer to go away than even the reeking stench.

He has nightmares about having his throat bitten out. About the press of a body as it holds him. Unable to move as hot breath slides along his throat and teeth sink in.

Nico always wakes from those more disturbed than the rest. And doesn’t care to investigate, shifting to his other form to run off the unsettled feeling.

-

Yusuf does not dream, not in any tangible sense, but to say that he is otherwise unbothered by the beast would be false. He spends his days hunting him, hoping to find him out in the sunlight when he will not be expecting it. He has gotten so familiar with the man’s stench that he could pick it up from almost anywhere in the city. 

It stays within the city walls, and he often has no trouble tracking him down. So when it strays outside of the city and into the outlands beyond, Yusuf is more than a little suspicious. For all that he was invulnerable to death itself, it and everything short of it still hurt like hellfire, and the last thing he was going to do was let the beast capture him. 

And yet. 

Perhaps the beast has given up. Turned tail and run. 

Yusuf would allow that, and wish him a life so painful he’d never return, but the damn bastard  _ has his knife _ .

So he sets off after him, determined to kill him one last time, take his dagger back, and send his stubbornly death-resistant body down the Jordan river. 

-

The attack comes without warning, this time. There is no telltale waft of death. No hissed epithets in a harsh tongue Nico barely understands. No, he is wading out of the water, having finally rid himself of the vamp stench, when something lodges itself in his throat. He feels the stinging burn of silver and a gush of hot blood.

The bastard found him quickly this time, is all he has the time to think as he crumples to his knees and falls to the water.

-

Yusuf follows the trail all the way to an oasis, and it smells lived-in. Like the beast routinely comes here. He should have thought to look for him here sooner. No matter. He will not be a problem any longer, not after this. 

However, he doesn’t see the werewolf. Nor any of his belongings. Worst of all, he does not see his dagger anywhere. 

Yusuf hisses, a low sound, and steps closer to inspect the area. The old camp. And does not hear the beast coming up behind him, does not smell him as a boot lashes out at his leg, sets him off balance, and follows up with the burn of a silver blade through his ribs. He doesn’t make a sound as he falls, and curses the beast again.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me to write more in the [discordd](https://discord.gg/kDJpjxx)! 
> 
> or just come hang out with us, we're pretty cool, haha c;
> 
> as always, comments feed me. I want to see your theories for what kind of creatures the rest of the squad is! c;


End file.
